Related papers: Juggling with light
Wave-particle interaction is a key process in particle diffusion in collisionless plasmas. We look into the interaction of single plasma waves with individual particles and discuss under which circumstances this is a chaotic process,…
The physical properties of electromagnetic waves in the presence of a gravitational plane wave are analyzed. Formulas for the Stokes parameters describing the polarization of light are obtained in closed form. The particular case of a…
When linearly polarized light propagates through a medium in which elliptically polarized light would undergo self-rotation, squeezed vacuum can appear in the orthogonal polarization. A simple relationship between self-rotation and the…
We track particle motions in a granular material subjected to compaction using a laser scattering based imaging method where compaction is achieved through thermal cycling. Particle displacements in this jammed fluid correlate strongly with…
Terrestrial experiments on active particles, such as Volvox, involve gravitational forces, torques and accompanying monopolar fluid flows. Taking these into account, we analyse the dynamics of a pair of self-propelling, self-spinning active…
The branching random walk is shown to be monotone decreasing in ascending direction of integer lattices as a corollary of an observation in regard to the lineage of particles from antisymmetric initial states, and a related property of…
We analyze numerically the correspondence between the mechanical action, experienced by a spherical microparticle, and the internal energy flows as well as spatial and polarization inhomogeneity of the light field incident on the particle.…
A new mechanism for micro-swimmer motion in an aquatic environment, which implies light-induced polarization perturbations as a motivation for its motion, is proposed. The mechanism assumes that natural light leads to an enhancement of the…
As any physical object, light undergoing a circular trajectory features a constant extrinsic angular momentum. Within strong curvatures, this angular momentum can match the spin momentum of a photon, thus providing the opportunity of a…
By means of the method of moving Frenet-Serret frame the set of equations of motion is derived for spinning particle in an arbitrary external field, which is determined by potential depending from both position and the state of movement, as…
Understanding the momentum of light when propagating through optical media is not only fundamental for studies as varied as classical electrodynamics and polaritonics in condensed matter physics, but also for important applications such as…
We explore the impact of weak disorder on the dynamics of classical particles in a periodically oscillating lattice. It is demonstrated that the disorder induces a hopping process from diffusive to regular motion i.e. we observe the…
Most astrophysical fluids are turbulent and magnetized. Fluctuations of polarization provide a promising way to study astrophysical magnetic turbulence. We discuss polarization that arises from grains and atoms aligned in respect to…
We study the hydrodynamic coupling between particles and solid, rough boundaries characterized by random surface textures. Using the Lorentz reciprocal theorem, we derive analytical expressions for the grand mobility tensor of a spherical…
Wave-particle duality finds a natural application for electrons or light propagating in disordered media where coherent corrections to transport are given by two-wave interference. For scatterers with internal degrees of freedom, these…
A consistent theory, which describes the incoherent scattering of classically moving relativistic particles by the nuclei of crystal planes without any phenomenological parameter is presented. The basic notions of quantum mechanics are…
We consider optical properties of a gas of molecules that are brought to fast unidirectional spinning by a pulsed laser field. It is shown that a circularly polarized probe light passing through the medium inverts its polarization…
We study a superfluid in a planar annulus hosting vortices with massive cores. An analytical point-vortex model shows that the massive vortices may perform radial oscillations on top of the usual uniform precession of their massless…
We report on the discovery of a unidirectional continuous orbital motion of a single pair of nanoparticles which occurs spontaneously in room-temperature air and can be manipulated by light. By varying the relative position of two…
The relative motion of many particles can be described by the geodesic deviation equation. This can be derived from the second covariant variation of the point particle's action. It is shown that the second covariant variation of the string…